San Antonio agrees to release ETJ to Schertz

By David DeKunder - Staff writer/Northeast Herald :
May 6, 2010

An agreement that will release thousands of acres of land in San Antonio's extraterritorial jurisdiction along Interstate 10 to Schertz was approved by the San Antonio City Council last week.

The agreement releases a total of 3,486 acres of San Antonio's ETJ lands north of I-10 to Schertz. The ETJ lands are in an area bordered by FM 1518 to the west, Lower Seguin Road to the north, Cibolo Creek to the east and I-10 to the south.

San Antonio's actions come after the Schertz City Council gave its support for the agreement on March 30.

The release of the ETJ lands to Schertz completes more than three years of negotiations between the cities. Schertz Assistant City Manager David Harris said the agreement is an extension of the I-10 Corridor East Perimeter Plan, a regional plan developed by San Antonio and other area cities to deal with growth and development along the I-10 corridor.

As part of the agreement, Schertz is moving forward with plans to annex parts of the ETJ lands, a process that started with an agenda item at last Tuesday's Schertz City Council meeting. The city is looking to annex a 415-acre stretch of land from FM 1518 to Trainer Hale Road.

Depending on council's requested approval on the start of the annexation process, Harris said it could be mid-to-late July before the 415-acre stretch could be in the Schertz city limits.

Once the city has completed annexing the first stretch of the ETJ lands, it will look at annexing other ETJ land before the end of the year, including a 191-acre stretch from Trainer Hale Road to the Cibolo Creek.

Other stipulations of the agreement prohibit billboards along the corridor, extend the land use and road plans, subdivision regulations and landscaping and tree ordinances to the ETJ areas, and rebate San Antonio 50 percent of sales tax revenues for 10 years from those areas that will be annexed.